Sammanfattning

By depicting who eats whom, food webs offer descriptions of how groupings in nature (typically species or populations) are linked to each other. For asking questions on how food webs are built and work, we need descriptions of food webs at different levels of resolution. DNA techniques provide opportunities for highly resolved webs. In this paper, we offer an expose of how DNA-based techniques, and DNA barcodes in particular, have recently been used to construct food web structure in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. We highlight how such techniques can be applied to simultaneously improve the taxonomic resolution of the nodes of the web (i.e., the species), and the links between them (i.e., who eats whom). We end by proposing how DNA barcodes and DNA information may allow new approaches to the construction of larger interaction webs, and overcome some hurdles to achieving adequate sample size. Most importantly, we propose that the joint adoption and development of these techniques may serve to unite approaches to food web studies in aquatic and terrestrial systems-revealing the extent to which food webs in these environments are structured similarly to or differently from each other, and how they are linked by dispersal.

Nyckelord

DNA barcodes; food webs; species delimitation; species identification; trophic links; ecological networks

Publicerad i

Genome
2016, Volym: 59, nummer: 9, sidor: 603-628
Utgivare: CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING, NRC RESEARCH PRESS

SLU författare

• Roslin, Tomas

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen

SDG14 Hav och marina resurser
SDG15 Ekosystem och biologisk mångfald


UKÄ forskningsämne

Ekologi


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/gen-2015-0229

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/78456